TubaOrNotTuba

Some people are unable to avoid being noticed. Take our mayor, with a guitar (please!). Last weekend, the police in a small town north of Montreal wondered why one of the local fire trucks was “wandering” around town, with the siren and power lights on, when they’d heard nothing over the radio. They gave chase (at low speed), and when the big red tanker was finally immobilized, the driver jumped out (hurting himself from the fall) and then ran away with the forces of law and order in pursuit. I didn’t see it, I didn’t hear it, but I can imagine the scene. (Taken from a CP story).

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There’s just over a week to go before B-day, where the B stands for bells. On July 3rd, the invitation has gone out to over 400 municipalities in Canada to help celebrate the quadricentennial here in Quebec City by ringing their bells. In particular, those that hide away inside church spires. This city has too many for me to count, but when you’re in party mode, the more the merrier.

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First of all, let me extend my deepest sympathies to the citizens of Huntsville, Ontario. A lovely community, really; a population of about 18,000. Beautiful countryside, nature in the driver’s seat. Quiet, for the moment. They now have about 24 months to get their barricades in place, because the current government announced today that the G8 summit will be held there in 2010.

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An ad on TV this evening caught my eye (that’s what it was supposed to do) and then took me down the “What If?” pathway. The advertiser: our national passenger rail corporation. The idea: that I come and ride the train, on an adventure through beautiful scenery, in comfortable, “worry free” seating, just because I can. I’m easily distracted by the idea; after all, I have something like 32 trips on The Ocean under my belt.

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I’m going to catch up with a small administrative task left over from yesterday, and then we’ll look at some ideas on how the virtual desktop can be shared among varied machines. For the past couple of years, the snowfall levels have kept me watchful – will the tendency to accumulate come to an end, so that we can return to more of a “barefoot in the park” lifestyle. To that end, I’ve been taking photos, and yesterday afternoon should have been one of those freeze-frames. Except that I was at work; my photo today is LATE, but the difference should not be measurable.

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If you can’t be remembered for what you’ve done (or represented), then be famous for the trophy named in your memory. It certain works for that top of the heap position, the governor-generalship of Canada. I didn’t “know” but I’d long suspected that those sports championships were named for somebody or other. Wikipedia confirmed it, with the section on Sports Trophies Named After Canadian Governors-general which opened my eyes to how some things are more obscure than others. How about that Michener trophy, eh?

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Before we go any further, the refrain to the song goes as follows: “C’est la faute des liberaux”. Or, after running it through the New Goverment translation service: “It is the fault of the liberals”. What fault? Governments don’t have those. Oh yes, this time around, it appears that our arms sales have been doing much better than previously reported. Or, not reported, in this case.

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A parent asks and a child gives the simplest of answers to the most mundane of questions: What did you do today? But what if you couldn’t answer, because you can’t remember. This weekend’s video rental dealt with that dark area known as neurological damage. What if you couldn’t remember? What if the act of sequencing was derailed?

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The day is over, and I have been well entertained. Today was “the day”, when son #3 and a host of other musicians gathered on the stage of the new Salle Raoul-Jobin, in the renovated Palais Montcalm theatre in Quebec City. A concert hall that still has the “new car” smell. And, from my point of view, excellent acoustics. I was there, and the concert was memorable.

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The 400th Birthday Club is at it again.

Sometime in the next two hundred and twenty-odd days, a birthday cake will be loaded on a big truck (with at least two flat tires) and the cry will go out to light the candles. I fear there won’t be a lucifer to be found. No lights, no show. You see, the celebration for Quebec City’s Four Hundredth Anniversary (in capitals, if you please) just seems to hit one bump after another.

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